Devil In The Machine: Error 37 Returns To Diablo

Edit: Reports are that people are now managing to get back in. John just got an orange drop, for instance.

Have you ever built a house of cards? It takes ages, and then all you can do is pray that the cruel forces of nature don't send a gentle puff of wind or prancing baby deer in its direction. If anyone so much as enters the same room as it, you reflexively scream "DON'T TOUCH IT." 6.3 million people touched Blizzard's latest house of cards. It exploded. So then Blizzard touched it and, well, it double-exploded. In the wake of patch 1.0.2 going live (which, itself, necessitated many hours of downtime to apply), EU players reported prolonged server outages. Amongst all the rioting in the streets, people on fire, and not-looting, some claim to have seen Errors 37 and 73 creeping through the wreckage, wringing their cold hands maniacally. Now a more than 80-page forum thread is finally seeing claims of successful logins - but with swift disconnects shortly after.

Blizzard responded around six hours ago, but hasn't given a status update on the situation since. So for now, here's the only word from on high:

"Login is currently being impacted by the number of players that are coming online after they downloaded the patch and accepted the Terms of Use. Sadly, the additional steps required to patch and log in to the game is creating a lot of the 'Error 37' prompts for players."

"We're currently working on a fix for this and are looking to have it implemented as soon as possible; we hope to have future patching processes smoothed out for Diablo III."

US servers, meanwhile, appear to be functioning normally - making this situation all the more perplexing. In related news, an in-game prompt (you know, when you can log-in) now pegs the oft-delayed real money auction house's launch on June 12. It is, at this point, a bit difficult to not be incredibly skeptical.

So, right then. As always, we'll keep you updated. The whole situation's a bit of a mess - as we've discussed countless times - and it's immensely discouraging that it still hasn't gotten any better. Launch hiccups? Sure, those are a thing. But these are acidic mini-volcanoes of launch vomit.

Some players, predictably, are accusing Blizzard of laziness. I actually do not think that's the case. This is the company that still releases patches for most of its more-than-a-decade-old games. There's no lack of dedication in this rapidly festering formula. But clearly, Blizzard's bitten off more than it can chew, and now customers are paying the price.